When the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the GDP (gross domestic product) figure for the first quarter of the current financial year on August 31, it seemed the perfect prelude to the upcoming G20 summit, which the Narendra Modi-led government was keen to showcase as ‘India’s moment’. Just a month earlier, the prime minister had declared that India would become the world’s third-largest economy in his third term, and the 7.8 percent GDP growth for the first quarter of FY24, compared to 6.1 percent in the previous one (Q4 of FY23), seemed to suggest that India was well on its way to get there.
